‘Cruel’: Amanda Knox husband hits back as freed Rudy Guede says she ‘knows the truth’ about Meredith Kercher murder

The husband of Amanda Knox has hit back after Rudy Guede, the man convicted of raping and killing British student Meredith Kercher, has said that her then-flatmate “knows the truth” about what happened in Italy in 2007.

Guede was speaking in his first interview after he was released from an Italian prison on 23 November, having served 13 years of a 16-year sentence for the rape and murder of 21-year-old Kercher in Perugia on 1 November 2007. The exchange student from Coulsdon, Surrey, was found sexually assaulted and stabbed in her room. Guede, who was 20 at the time, was convicted during a closed fast-track trial in 2008 after his bloody fingerprint was found at the scene.

He had blamed Ms Knox for the killing and she was convicted of murder along with her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and sentenced to 26 years in prison in 2009 before their convictions were overturned on appeal six years later. They have both always maintained their innocence.

“I’ve got blood on my hands because I tried to save her, not kill her,” Guede told The Sun on Saturday, just days after leaving the prison.

Apologising to Kercher’s parents, Guede said: “The first thing I want to say is to the Kercher family and how sorry I am for their loss.”

"I have written a letter to them in which I explain to them how sorry I am but it’s too late to say sorry for not doing enough to save Meredith,” the former drifter told the British tabloid.

He added that the court has confirmed that he tried to save the woman by putting towels on her wounds.

The court, Guede claimed, had convicted him for being an accessory to murder purely because “my DNA was there but the [legal] documents say others were there and that I did not inflict the fatal wounds.”

Ms Knox had recently asked Guede to admit he acted alone in murdering Kercher and “restore her wrongly damaged reputation”.

In response, Guede said: “I don’t want to say anything other than she should read the documents.”

Maintaining his defence, Guede claimed: “As I told you, they say others were there and that I did not inflict the stab wounds. I know the truth and she knows the truth.” Guede also reiterated his claims accusing Mr Sollecito of being involved.

While Guede was convicted of raping and killing Kercher, he had claimed that Knox and her former lover Sollecito were the ones who inflicted the stab wounds.

Ms Knox’s husband, Christopher Robinson, responded by called Guede’s comments “cruel”.

In a tweet he criticised The Sun’s story and the reporter who wrote it, adding: “This is cruel to Amanda as well as the Kercher family.”